


Better Home Awaiting

by thundercracker



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Tres Horny Girls AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2018-10-22 01:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10687164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercracker/pseuds/thundercracker
Summary: In another world, three women set out on the last job they'll ever need to take.It doesn't quite work out that well.





	1. Prologue: morning in may

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ _(but please, if I could only tell him goodbye; all I want is just one more day, that morning in May)_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7W4ZwhnJ24)
> 
> Julia leaves home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Major Character Death tag is mostly for Magnus. Don't worry about it. :'-)

She had been in the Market Corridor on the morning in May, enjoying the pleasant warmth of a cloudless day. Magnus was at home, putting the final touches on a chair before he needed to leave for an exhibition; Steven would be starting breakfast soon, something that would take a while to cook so he could secretly appraise Magnus's work in the meantime. 

Julia had been chatting with Yuxin, the young elven woman who ran the halal butchery. It was smalltalk—what was fresh, which old friends were coming home now that Kalan was gone. 

And then, suddenly and in the worst way, the town discovered that Kalan was not as gone as they had hoped. 

Julia was standing on the corner of Keats's Meats and Laurel's Florals. The love of her life and the man who had taken her in were not. 

It was not a peaceful death, the kind that Julia would have hoped for her father had she ever considered that he, the most charismatic and brave figure in her life, would die. It was not a heroic death, the kind that Julia had always thought she and her husband would face together.

She had not though of death since the revolution. She had been sure, then, that they would perish beside each other—fire raging, blood flowing, pulse racing, high on adrenaline but _together_ , facing down Kalan's men, perhaps, or the ones to strike the final blow before succumbing to their wounds. Or, perhaps, to be killed as martyrs as they slept, if their late-night barroom conspiring was noticed before the day of the coup. And then, when the battle was over, barricades town down, treaties written, it seemed as though they may live forever. 

She could imagine how it happened: there had been tremor and an alarming boom, the likes of which they hadn’t experienced since—never, as far as anyone on Faerûn at the time could remember. A tremor; a boom; a sudden, nausea-inducing drop. There was—Julia heard, even from her location in the market—a horrible cracking as the world itself seemed to shatter. Sheets of slate cleaved underfoot as floorboards snapped past their breaking point, the walls warping down and out like some living beast’s maw closing shut.

Julia saw it in her mind: her father falling to his knees, bracing himself; trying to stand up once the drop ceased, his stomach churning and legs unsteady. Magnus dropping to the ground, leaping up, shrugging her father over his broad shoulders. He would have run towards the door. He would have known to get outside of a collapsing building. It would not have mattered.

Another boom. Another tremor. Another drop.

Her father and husband would not rise again.

 

Crowds amassed at the side of the town closest to the Craftsman’s Corridor. People shouted desperately, passing the news that the ex-governor had been sighted at the base, that he said that Raven’s Roost would perish if it would not belong to him. Parents argued in hushed tones over whether and when to leave.

There was an unspoken agreement that Raven’s Roost had been lost.

Another Julia, months ago, brash and emboldened by her fiancé's spot by her side, would have protested. The other Julia would take her place in front of her people and tell them, selfsure, that only succumbing to his threats would be losing the Roost. 

The other Julia would not instead be running down the Market Corridor’s stairs to the world below—she had seen Kalan on her way down, emotionless, as if this destruction had been a chore to him, but he fled on horseback faster than she could hope to follow—and the other Julia would not be digging through the rubble with bleeding, battered hands, groceries long forgotten. People trickled into the area and aided her. (The other Julia would have been giving her own aid after her inspiring speech.) An elven woman with shaking hands and reddened eyes helped her, the mourning Julia that had to exist in Other Julia's place, to carry bodies from the ruined homes. Some of the amassing crowd dug graves hurriedly, eyes darting at the sound of each stone moved by the search parties; others stared on hopelessly at the scene or at the world above and its streams of people rushing to leave.

The death count was at 50. Julia and the elven women had pulled nearly half of them from the wreckage themselves.

And then she found them.

 

She left the ruins of her home when the sun had set, her husband’s ring on a hemp string around her neck, her father’s red bandana on her wrist, and a hatchet from the workshop poking from her rucksack. The rest wouldn't help where she was going. 

The inn was too empty and too loud to sleep in. Morning brought no relief from the void left in the town.

Julia bought a ride on a wagon and never looked back.


	2. Prologue: burn baby burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ _(folks are screaming, out of control)_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M)
> 
> Lup retires from show biz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this fic before 3/5/17 (May 3rd), this chapter has been changed! It was previously about the Lonely Hearts Cantina bonus episode and the girls meeting. I’m making major edits to that chapter, which will be Chapter 4 when it comes out.
> 
> Warnings for Lup’s prologue: moderately severe burns, a mention of death (no actual death), misogyny from Sazed's POV, Sazed (who was never in a relationship with Lup), food, and lots of fire talk. 
> 
> Thank you to the folks who left comments on the original Chapter 2 and my apologies for accidentally deleting them by deleting the original version, oh geez. Also I think I accidentally stole the concept for this chapter from trainwreckgenerator's TAZswap AU ? Oh no

Fuck.

Fucking shit hell Glamour Springs was the absolute worst show of Lup’s life, and she had toured the Underdark.

Something had gone incomprehensibly, horrifically wrong, and she wasn’t sure _what_ exactly, but whatever it was apparently included the fireproofing spells on the stage _not working_ , like, _at all_ , and this had never happened before. Lup knew magical flambés were dangerous, but she was always so careful. She checked the fireproofing before each performance, and Sazed double-checked it, and something went very, very wrong that day.

The stagecoach was on fire. Just a little! Just as much fire as was warranted for her show-stopping chicken flambé poultry funeral pyre, which, admittedly, was an excessive amount of fire, a twenty-foot column the she sometimes claimed was delivering the poor bird’s trapped spirit to the big chicken hutch in the sky.

A twenty-foot column of fire was a terrifying thing, in retrospect.

The audience was screaming. No one seemed _too_ hurt, not lethally, but everyone was justifiably terrified; a dwarven woman who had been seated in front held a trembling hand inches away from a grotesque blotch on her face that was quickly beginning to blister, while a family near the back was desperately stomping out small flames. Most of the crowd was running to town—for help or safety, Lup wasn’t sure—and a smaller group was forming just out of the forested area, paralyzed either by fear or grim fascination at what was quickly becoming a modest wildfire.

Fuck. Fuck Lup’s self-preservation instincts, fuck the fact that she _did_ care but she was a shitty first-level wizard with one schtick, and being able to make big fancy fires wasn’t the same as putting them out.

She did what she did best: she cast Dancing Lights to signal for actually competent help and started calculating the fastest way out of trouble. 

Lup threw open the door of the smaller wagon with such force and desperation that her hired help nearly jolted out of his seat on an overturned crate. As it was, the burly, sandy-haired man startled so badly that he dropped what he had been passing between his hands—it appeared to be a cheap aluminum locket roughly the shape and size of a robin’s egg—and scrambled to pick it up with more urgency than his employer had ever seen from him on their most last-minute performances.

She might have been curious if she hadn’t been in the worst possible scenario. Now that the door was open, the muffled sounds from outside were clear: Sazed could hear panicked shouting drowning out everything except a terrible crackling sound and the loud pop of something on fire.

The air outside was beginning to reek of dry smoke.

“No time for fucking around this time, buddy!” Lup half-laughed, panic bubbling up her throat, “We need to be out of this general vicinity two minutes ago!”

“…Sorry, _what_?”

“You heard me! Baked Alaska is looking raw compared to the stagecoach right now!” the wizard laughed, choking on air ever so briefly. Her eyes darted around the room, landing on one of their barrels of water.  “I fucking—forgot to fireproof the place? But I swear I did, Saze, I always do it first thing—or maybe I botched it so badly it made things _more_ flammable, who the hell even knows?” Lup grunted as she tried to move the water barrel, but upper body strength was far from her forte. (Fuck, she needed to start lifting weights or something; a girl never knows when she’ll have a fire to put out, apparently.)

“Point is, my guy, I’m pretty sure some people in the front row got second degree burns _at least_ , neither of us can afford to pay the crowd’s medical bills and whatever comp they charge for catching a forest on fire, I already sent up Dancing Lights to signal the healers in town, and we need to get the hell out of dodge!” She considered the barrel again. “I mean, deffo pour this stuff and the sandbags over the fire first, that shit is spreading way too fast? Fucking— I’ll try to get the horse hitched, I guess, but you’d better step on it, pal!”

Sazed looked absolutely gobsmacked, and yeah, Lup got that. She hadn’t exactly been planning on accidental arson when she was making the menu for today’s show. Still, he recovered quickly enough to do as she told him, as futile as the attempt was. At least the area was mostly vacated. The fire had spread to the forest, thankfully not reaching the smaller wagon. Thank Pan for forest clearings being at least relatively safer. Fuck Pan for making everything else so damn flammable.

The chef and her assistant, hearts pounding, fled the scene of their final show.

The star of it all stared out the back window in horror; the creeping guilt in her chest constricted its tendrils around her, dug its roots deep in her legs so that she couldn’t move, bloomed in her throat and burned like acid—

There was a brief, horrible moment of eye contact between her and a half-elf woman, one of the last audience members still in proximity of the fire.

The half-elf tilted her chin up at her. The betrayal and judgement in her eyes felt hotter on Lup’s skin than the fire outside.

 

* * *

 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Sazed thought, heart pounding as he managed to guide their horse away from the fire with extreme difficulty; she must have switched the order or cut corners or _something_. He had planned it all out meticulously: he would tell her that the fireproofing checked out; Lup would warm the crowd up with small tricks, showing them how she would bake macarons _just so_ with her flames so that they wouldn’t burn; her more impressive feats would come at the end, they always did, culminating in her “poultry pyre”—ugh, how tasteless—and her famed baked Alaska. Normally her safety precautions would prevent anything from getting out of hand, but, well. A locket capable of casting  Dispel Magic was a nifty accessory (and for only a reasonable price at the market) and who was Sazed to let an opportunity pass him by?

He didn’t _like_ the idea of hurting a woman, of course, but he had timed it out in his mind. Forty minutes in, he would run in and save the day. _Sazed, Lup’s hero_. It would just scare her a little, make her rethink how much she needed his help, since she clearly hadn’t thought it through yet. He had been so _reasonable_ before with his requests, practically asking for the bare minimum. He had tried to offer his opinions and she had brushed him off, said that she could handle the show on her own, that she knew more about show biz than he did—yeah right, he’d been watching her long enough to know just as much as she would ever understand. She had gone so far as to joke about not needing him when she had a mage hand to help her with the lifting—the fucking _nerve._ He’d been with her on the road for how many months and she still wouldn’t take him seriously?

So she might get hurt; Sazed would dash to the rescue, perfectly timed on his part, just in time to save her from any real harm. Or, _if_ , if if _if_ she were to get seriously hurt—or, say, too scarred from the fire to lure in viewers with her pretty elven face—that would be _such_ a shame, but her dear, loyal compatriot would just have to take up the mantle of _Get Fired Up with Lup_. Not being a wizard, and truthfully not so fond of fire and flambés in the first place, perhaps he would have to bear the burden of rebranding as _Heat Things Up with Sazed_. Or perhaps _Sizzle Things Up with Sazed_? No, that sounded corny. _Cooking with Fire, Starring Sazed_? Eh, no. But the options were limitless! He would have to get some shirts reprinted, but merchandising wasn’t everything (despite Lup’s beliefs). Oh, except _none_ of that was happening, because Miss Merchandising had to screw it all up by mixing up the menu without telling him. Fucking hell.

He needed to find a new opportunity. So he did.

 

* * *

 

Lup woke up one morning a quarter-mile away from Neverwinter with an empty gold satchel and a horseless wagon .

She probably had no right to blame him for leaving. She was bitter anyway.

She always joked about how her show was about as dangerous as anyone else’s cooking as a way to assuage her audience’s fears.

What a fucking joke, huh.

 

* * *

 

Sazed had apparently been in too much of a rush to leave, because Lup found the locket on the ground that afternoon, its chain apparently broken.

She knew she wasn’t the best at reaching conclusions, but she thought, and she wondered, and she suspected.

Lup didn’t travel with men she'd just met after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry about the chapter titles. I swear they're just for the character prologues


	3. Prologue: keeping the faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ _(say goodbye to the oldies but goodies, 'cause the good ole days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems)_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBUj8TPWE9E)
> 
>  
> 
> Hecuba gets better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for bad parenting re: Merle and Hecuba fighting, and some sort of heavy but vague talk about BPD. 
> 
> Hecuba dealing with the fact she isn't really a Good Person is based loosely on my past relationship with my own borderline traits. The last thing I want to do is associate BPD with being dangerous or abusive. It can be difficult to learn and grow out of certain unhealthy patterns, but "it's hard" can't be an excuse; this whole fic actually grew from me wanting to explore that re: Hecuba and her kids.
> 
> An aside: I think Hecuba would be really into Fantasy Billy Joel.  
> 

Hecuba Roughridge was by no means an adventurer. She was a pearl farmer, a fisherwoman, a mother, and a healer of the Revered Mother Berronar Truesilver—and she was hardly the latter at all, only having taken up healing in the past few years because Mookie’s rambunctious adventures on the beach had begun to necessitate more than bandages and kisses.

She was careful to watch him when she could—she wasn’t _irresponsible_ , g-ds forbid—but sometimes she would be pulling crabs from her traps or checking her oysters and Mavis would lose track of him for a split second, and the next thing either of them knew Mookie would be sprawled out on the sand, laughing and screaming over his latest injury from driftwood or mussels or urchins. His exuberance in these moments would have been endearing if it wasn’t for the even greater worry his excursions warranted.

The dwarven mother was constantly tired and low on spell slots, but she wouldn’t trade her kids for the world. Being a single parent had been hardest when Merle had first left; she was fine financially without her husband’s support, but the kids had been devastated.

Mookie hadn’t really grasped it for a while; Hecuba had sat him down (a feat in itself, at his age) and tried to explain that his father wouldn’t be coming back, but the full implications eluded the child. Mavis was mature for her age, a label that she wore with some pride and even greater responsibility, and understood; Hecuba had found her crying at the seaside a few days later amidst a thick morning mist, clutching her diary. The mother had sat next to her, unsure of what to say.

Merle hadn’t been a good parent, but neither had _she_ , Hecuba supposed. They had still been everything the kids had. Maybe neither of them had even realized it until then, not consciously.

Part of her wondered if her foul mood that week had been the final straw. She had been yelling over something petty and he had been arguing back, equally petty. Mavis and Mookie had been out scouring the tidepools for abalone, because Hecuba tried her damnedest to not fight in front of them. She wouldn’t let them know about how bad things had gotten, she was at least self-aware enough for _that_. In retrospect, though, they must have known; there was too much worry in Mavis’s voice before she left that morning, Mookie in tow, with an excuse to go out on the tip of her tongue.

She thought that once her argument with Merle was over they would both ignore each other for a while before continuing as normal. It had happened enough to be predictable—but, well, with such low expectations, she supposed the relationship was bound to break off at some point.

Regardless, she hadn’t handled it well when she found out. She didn’t allow herself to spend much time around the kids that week; they didn't need raised voices or emotional burdens to carry, they needed—space? reprieve? What was her excuse for ignoring them? 

Neither she nor Merle were quite what she’d call a “good person,” and it was hard realizing that—she wanted to reject it, she wanted to claim that she had always done what she thought was right. She wanted to think that Merle had overreacted, that the fight was his fault for not accepting what she said. She was faultless in this debacle, surely. Except this had gone on for too long in too many iterations on the same theme; this had only been the latest and most explosive. This had only been the one to finally drive away the man she wanted gone anyway.

_How had she not thought of the kids, though?_

It hurt to think about. She tried to avoid it, the first week, but the pain crept into her in the quiet moments when Mavis would stare off into the space on the chesterfield that Merle used to favor.

She was lucky to have friends in the Coralheart clan who apparently cared more about her than she damn well deserved; Glymeth in particular had convinced her to see a community counselor at least once, and it had been eye-opening enough that she returned of her own volition and entrusted Mavis and Mookie to a neighbor while she devoted her time to her sessions.

(She had sworn, looking into Mavis’s eyes—she wouldn’t make Mookie attempt eye contact—that she would be back, that she was a short walk away if she ever needed her, this wasn’t going to be like their father all over again. There was something she had to do, she wanted to be better for them, and right now she had to go for a short bit to learn how to be better. She would be back soon, _I promise, I promise, I love you, don’t let Mookie get into too much trouble with Auntie Thais_.)

Dwarven Behavioral Therapy was novel to her; it was hard, picking apart the things she thought, dissecting them until she could place the root of it all under a microscope. When had she become so jaded? When had she started feeling everything in extremes?

Why hadn’t she noticed earlier?

…Had _Mavis_ noticed? (Of course she had. She was an amazingly brilliant girl. Mavis must have known before Hecuba had even begun to acknowledge it.)

Thank the Revered Mother for Glymeth intervening when he had.

The kids deserved to have at least one good parent.

 

* * *

 

The woman spent much of her time outside of therapy with Glymeth. He was more religious than Hecuba remembered him being; she hadn’t been very involved in the greater Coralheart community for quite some time, generally preferring to spend her time working alone, and since her falling-out with her diehard Thard Harrite family, words of worship felt sour in her mouth. Her friend had changed quite a bit; he seemed happier, and happy to see her after so long. It made her feel strangely appreciated, so much so that she accepted his invitation to morning prayers for the Revered Mother.

Hecuba didn’t want to acknowledge it—especially in such flowery terms—but… the prayer service made her heart feel light. Song and dance were woven through the prayers, so different from the rigid call-and-response of her family's services for Thard Harr. When the service neared its close, several dwarves came to the center of the living room the services took place in, for the deity of home and hearth favored such places, and called into the air:

“Revered Mother, this year the Raven Queen has taken our family from us: Gamren Thundershield; Dhor Seagale; Kenny Coralheart. Blessed are you, Revered Mother, who allowed us to know them on this plane, who grants us health and home so that we may know completeness of the spirit. Maintain us in body and soul, and may we persist in this plane as the memory of our lost persists in us.”

The more pious dwarves kissed interlocking silver hoops hung around their necks, wrapped them as if they were made of crystal, and returned them to a rack built into the home.

Hecuba breathed deep and smiled more easily than she had in years.

 

* * *

 

It was a matter of weeks later that Hecuba and the community counselor agreed that she should return home to her children; it seemed an eternity. She had never been away from them for so long, and she knelt to embrace them both as she saw them again. Mookie ran to her like a bullet—the boy nearly knocked her over—and Mavis tentatively hugged her mother, obviously unsure of what to make of this multi-week ordeal.

“I’m sorry, Mavis, Mookie,” the mother said as gently as her gravelly voice would allow, “I needed to sort some stuff out with myself. That won’t happen again.”

“By ‘that’,” Mavis asked with a wobbly smile and a tired chuckle, “do you mean our father disappearing, you having self-revelations, or you leaving us?”

“Well, I should hope _all_ of it!” laughed a teary-eyed Hecuba.

(At the time, she thought she was telling the truth; and for quite some time, it was true.)

 

* * *

 

Things were better after that. The Roughridge-Highchurch trio formed new routines; the mother found herself spending more and more time at the beach chasing after Mookie herself, more time asking Mavis about the books she was reading. It was draining; it made her feel like more of a mother than she had ever been before. She tried to be _better,_ in a nebulous sense of the word, mentally rehearsing mindfulness techniques and yearning to move on. And, with time, she did.

Mavis had obviously been uncomfortable with the idea of her mother dating again for a while, but opened up to it with a series of negotiations—no kissing around her, tell her when dates are so she can see what sort of guy might be her next dad and then immediately leave to avoid it.

In the end, Hecuba only dated Glymeth, and only for two months.

It was a comfortable relationship for a while, but it became progressively harder for Hecuba to say she loved him as the weeks passed. She had felt the same with Merle (who she had briefly _tried_ to love, despite the arranged marriage), but she had convinced herself that dating her best friend would be different. It wasn’t.

The breakup was smooth and amicable, and the awkwardness blissfully brief. He understood when she told him that she wasn’t sure if she would ever enjoy romance. No men appealed to her for long, she had noticed, but she couldn’t place why.

Glymeth hummed thoughtfully at that statement.

The simple sound made Hecuba’s heart pound, just for a moment, from fear or an inexplicable feeling that something had clicked into place without her knowing what it was.

The moment passed, and the hours passed; and the hours with her kids and the hours spent rapt in prayer turned into days and weeks and she finally understood, looking at the wrinkled and spotted face of the elderly cantor as she sang of family and belonging, her face haloed in morning light from the window, eyes bright with joy under her sagging brows.  _Oh, hm._

(The cantor was, unfortunately for her, quite straight.)

Hecuba understood when, weeks after, her hands brushed against the wrist of Pepper Beachburrow, M.D. Her skin was soft and smooth, despite its spotty discolorations. Unfortunately, Dr. Pepper was famously secure in her marriage, and a medical emergency truly the time or place for sparks to fly anyway.

The two were huddled into a makeshift tent with a handful of other amateur healers in the area; a member of the Revered Mother's congregation had pricked his thumb on silverpoint while harvesting spices for the Saturday night service and was not long for this world, despite all their efforts at prolonging his life.

That was the first time Hecuba had tried to heal someone besides Mookie. That was the first time she had failed. Not the first time she had seen death, but the first time since leaving the forest and knew she had tried and failed. It wasn't her fault, but the memory of glassy, lifeless eyes plagued her nonetheless; she began to read up on medicine when she could, in the dark of night after the kids had been tucked in. Unfortunately, a lot of her texts focused on... plants.

She hated it. 

She hated  _plants_. She hated what they meant to her. Plants that you ate to live, even though they taste like dirt and must, because if you didn't you couldn't keep up when the family traveled. Plants that would kill you or make you wish you were dead or at least inconvenience you for a few days. Plants that she grew because that's what mothers were  _supposed_ to do, and she had tried to keep up a good appearance to the neighbors. Plants that you brought into the house and came home  _thinking your husband is cheating on you and hopefully that's grounds for divorce but really he's talking dirty to your dahlias, what the fuck!_

And she hated that, as much as she had hated life in the forest, in her survivalist religion that meant  _you know what's good to eat or you die_ _or get left behind_ , the memories of the plants came back to her easily. And she remembered the symptoms they had helped with, and remembered the symptoms silverpoint had caused, and got to work. 

She didn't want to like working with plants again. She didn't. She could never find the right words to say to the cantor how she felt the presence of her g-d most in the corner of her garden (because that was just the sunshine getting to her), thinking of how the comfrey leaves would make a nice poultice for Mookie's ankle (because the pharmacy was overpriced), or the peppermint a calming tea for Mavis's cough (it tasted better than menthol!), but the older woman understood nonetheless, nodding and smiling softly, very much not helping the single mother's unfortunately burgeoning crush. "What is a home without life? And what is a garden but life and all that sustains us?" the cantor had asked her, to which Hecuba could only harrumph. 

( _Blessed are you, Berronar Truesilver our Revered Mother, who provides for us in health and in sickness..._ )

It was months into her medicinal research when a message from her AWOL husband’s cousin Gundren arrived, delivered through Sending by a gnomish man, begging for her to leave on a mission—he had meant to call Merle, but he was incommunicado and everyone else had refused, typical for an unreliable family like the Highchurches.

The gnome in the magical projection absentmindedly tugged the edge of his sleeve down over the edge of a silver bracer as he waited for a reply.

Hecuba thought of her family, sighed, and agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(Revered Mother, I cannot pray – slender Sharindlar has overcome me with longing for a girl, holy shit)_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> There's canonical information on how to be a worshiper of the Revered Mother and perform services but I wrote my own version based on Judaism because I'm gay 
> 
> I could write so much just about how I interpret Hecuba, honestly


	4. Prologue: The Lonely Hearts Cantina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[And we'll keep working on the problem we know we'll never solve, of love's uneven remainders, our lives are fractions of a whole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUym7n7fJTQ) _
> 
> The heroines meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. It's been over a year since I updated this and I know THG AU isn't really a thing anymore, but I still have ideas that I've been trying to put into words, so I'm making an attempt?
> 
> 2\. I don't really know how beta-ing works, but I would 100% love to have someone to at least throw around ideas with if not a beta!
> 
> 3\. That said, I'm, uh, really out of practice and I'd appreciate any feedback on how to improve writing style, characterization, etc. The following chapters will not have nearly as much dialogue as this one, though.  
> \- My original plan was to write the three pre-series prologues in past tense and the bonus episode forward on in present tense, but pleeeeease let me know if you'd prefer it all in past or present tense! And also if you prefer more paragraph/introspection-heavy or more dialogue-heavy style. I tried the dialogue-heay one this time but it felt rushed trying to do it without stealing the bonus episode dialogue and just repeating a lot of canon stuff.
> 
> 4\. You can also send feedback/questions at [betterhomeawaiting](betterhomeawaiting.tumblr.com) on tumblr, where I've been reblogging THG stuff. I like having comments on fics but whichever is easier!

The Lonely Hearts Cantina is, for the most part, a run-down, hole-in-the-wall sort of tavern, with little to its name besides a billiards table tucked into one corner and a few plain wooden tables surrounded by chairs. There’s no love in the design of the table Julia sat down at, but that’s fine. She’s not here to critique furniture, she’s here for the three things anybody comes to the Lonely Hearts Cantina for: the cheap drinks, the rumor that someone had invented air conditioning, and the slim, slim chance of getting a job. Fuck, she wishes she could critique furniture as a job.

A cursory glance around makes it obvious that the other patrons are there for similar reasons. An elven woman near the back has been alternately eyeing the billiards table and scanning the room, almost certainly looking for an easy mark—Julia has never been one for pool, but she’d scammed a few dozen folks with darts in Raven’s Roost back before she got a reputation. The elf’s clothes are stylish, but the scuffing on her sensible travelling boots give her away as a would-be adventurer, or at least an out-of-towner. She looks familiar, somehow, but she’s not from Raven’s Roost or a thieves’ guild

Two middle-aged or older (Julia is never quite sure about dwarf age) dwarves enter the tavern—a bit too quietly for a drinking party, and sweeping the room a bit too suspiciously—and seat themselves at the bar. One of them, at least, knows the gnomish barkeep.

“Friendly,” the man says, loud enough for Julia to hear from a table away, “the usual stout, please.”

The woman hums a moment and adds, “And a Tom Arnold.”

“Sorry?” the gnome asks, and there’s just the hint of a laugh. The dwarf next to her, completely unabashed, makes no pretense at stiffling his guffaw. “What’s that again?”

The woman looks embarrassed and raises a finger in the air. “The- shit. The one that isn’t a Tom Collins. A, uh. The Arnold one. It’s some guy.” She tucks her raised hand under the countertop and looks away. From where she’s sitting, Julia can see her counting to ten on her fingers. Not here to drink, then, if she’s basically getting iced tea. It’s a hot day, though, so Julia marks them as potential tourists on a budget. But with their backpacks, they could be nearly anything. One of them has a history with anger management programs, at least, and she makes a mental note to keep out of their way. 

The three remaining patrons are seated at a table together, and it’s clear as the hot, hot summer sky that they’re a group of adventurers just waiting for some quest to fall into their laps. She considers asking to join, briefly—none of them appear to be rogue-types, and if they’re experienced they know the shitty feeling of having a cool box full of loot but no way to open it.

She’s still mulling over the idea when a gnome appears in the doorway and announces that he has A List. His name is Craig, and this is Craig’s List, and he’s gone almost as soon as he arrives. Julia stands and makes a motion to move—there’s a paper that says “THE LAST JOB YOU’LL EVER NEED TO TAKE” right under a flyer stating “ELF SEEKING ELF FOR THE _REALLY_ WEIRD BUTT STUFF” and “SELLING HAUNTED DOLL POSESSED BY GRANDMA: SHE DOES ORBS,” and at least one of those interests the rogue adventurer. The trio at the table head to the board just as quickly, though, snag an entire job listing instead of _politely_ taking one of those little rip-off tabs, and return to their seats before she can read all of it.

“Hey,” Julia says, then coughs because her voice was absolutely refusing to sound intimidating. “Hey,” she tries again, and leans over their table. “I was kind of looking at that.”

A tall and _incredibly_ handsome man with a gleaming blonde bouffant hairstyle—so really, the stereotypical kind of handsome that reminded Julia of the worst romance novel covers—looks up and asks, “Can I help you? I mean, obviously I could give you this paper, but I’m afraid it’s ours now.”

“Sh’yeah, bud!” lisps his shortest companion. “And it calls for two or three adventurers, and you’re uh, not that!”

"You don't know that," Julia counters, though he's absolutely correct. It's the principle of the thing.

Then, from the back of the bar, a lilting voice pipes up, “Oh, she’s with me, don’t even sweat it!” and Julia looks up to see the elven woman striding towards them, prestidigitated sparks shooting from her hands framed around her face, an eye-catching red umbrella hooked from one thumb.  “The name’s Lup. Maybe lay off my friend here?”

“The thing is,” the man says, “obviously the job should go to the most skilled applicants. And that would just happen to be us.”

“The _thing_ is,” Julia counters pleasantly, “that’s not up to you to assume. So you really ought to let us have that and let the employer decide when we both apply!”

“Hell, why make the boss go through all that work to make the right decision?” the elf—Lup—adds. “Fuck it, let’s sort this shit right now! Big man, axe lady, you’re probably both fighters—”

“The name is Romulus.”

“And I’m a rogue, actually.”

“—You’re both strong weapons-types with muscles, same diff, and I assume at least one of you is a magic-type, let’s settle this!”

From the bar, Friendly chimes in, “Before anybody rolls initiative, uh, I’d like to say there’s no fighting in my bar, please, fellas!” The two dwarves, whispering between each other across the bar from him, are apparently watching the conversation with interest. Something about it unnerves Julia.

“Well, then,” says the third adventurer, a gnomish woman with a southern Faerunian accent, “a one-on-one competition isn’t really fair now, is it? A trio has skills that a duo simply doesn’t. I’m a cleric—Fran, nice to meet you—and what would your duo do without a healer? Just… die?”

 Julia goes to answer, but Lup cuts in first. “Listen. If we beat your buddies, you’re absolutely welcome to join us!  No hard feelings at all.” And it’s true, but Julia wishes she would have consulted her about that first. The gnome, on the other hand, makes a face like she doesn’t appreciate the offer. 

“Well, what if there’s a tie?” asks Romulus. “Not that there will be, but I really think you should get a cleric before you think you’re the better choice!”

Julia sighs, glances at the dwarves again, a desperate hope in her mind—and rolls high on a Perception check. Oh _hell_ yes—that’s definitely some sort of holy book holstered to her belt, and that’s definitely a hammer or at  _least_ a pickaxe poking out of their bags. Hopefully it's at least a battle pickaxe, if that's even a thing. She wracks her brain for anything she knows about religion, and she does, in fact, know that the blue strings on the corners of those clothes are religious in nature, and she knows enough to recognize a symbol on the book binding. Thank whatever deity the woman worships, Julia supposes—she doesn't remember how Fantasy Judaism works, exactly, with the whole "physical proof of multiple deities" and "found in every humanoid race" things, but clearly there's some system that works.

“Excuse me, ma’am at the bar,” Julia says loudly, “but would you happen to be a cleric? Uh, sorry if you’re just a religious miner or something?”

To her credit, the woman laughs. “The name’s Hecuba, and you’re spot on. Good observation skills.” She scrambles to climb down the stool, stumbling when she hits the floor, but she’s quick to walk over to join the argument. “I’m no adventurer, but if you need a temp cleric I’ll give you a fighting chance.”

“Good enough for us!” Lup chimes. “Can we finally do shit? Are we ready for that? We gonna, uh, roll some dice? Have a battle of wits and wagers?”

“Romulus, was it?” asks Julia gleefully, as if she hasn’t committed every bit of information about these fools to memory. ”What say we… _wrassle_?”

“No wrassling in the bar!” Friendly shouts.

“What say we… _arm wrassle_?”

“Arm wrassling is allowed!”

 “Last time I arm wrestled a man, I ripped that side of his body entirely off!” the fighter booms, and Julia laughs, undeterred.

“Well, the last time a man challenged me, I rewrote the town’s entire constitution! And also did a coup!” That one was, admittedly, a bit of a failure. A feeling has been creeping up on her since she entered the tavern as well, and she grimaces a moment while she tries to pinpoint it. "Hold up a sec, do you feel like—I feel like we should be charging for this? Like… at least some sort of donation? This could be the match of the century or... I don't even know why!"

“Sorry?" Lup laughed over the latter half of her words. "That was a really wild thing you just proposed, _excuse me_? Like, I get it, I feel that too and that's a bit freaky, but _what_?” Well, that was fair, Julia _guessed_ , but she’d felt a bit off the entire time in the bar. It was easy enough to shake off the feeling now, though, because _wrassling_ , but there was that vague unease. Who would she even charge? Friendly? The other dwarf? It’s not like anyone was watching. Or listening. She wasn't sure who would even be listening in on an arm wrestling match in a cheap tavern between a bunch of nobodies. She hoped it was just some passing brain shit that would sort itself out. 

Honestly, that plus the failed intimidation kind of killed her vibe, but the rogue nonetheless plopped herself in the one empty seat across from the man and grasped his fist. The countdown began, Julia primed herself, and—Romulus was thrown through the entire table as Julia managed a critical success. Grinning massively, Julia looks at a smiling Lup, who may or may not have been eyeing her biceps. “Glad you’re on my team?”

“Have been from the start, babe!”

“Alright, alright!” the one with the lisp adds, obviously frustrated. “You managed that, but how will you fare against me, Hambone!”

“Probably pretty well!” Lup chirps. “So like, what now? Comparing spells, ooooor?”

Hambone stage-whispers (ostensibly mysteriously), “Riiiiddleeeees!”

“Jeezus creezus, alright, toss one at me,” says Lup, exasperated, prompting the stupidest riddle battle in the entire planarverse, in which Hambone’s riddles consist of _guessing his middle name_ and _“what rhymes with purple_ ”, which Lup loses, because those aren’t fucking riddles, Hambone, what the fuck? Lup at least comes up with a decent one that she stole from an interactive scroll of riddles, apparently, about a scorpion crossing a river, but Hambone’s fake riddles still ended up in her loss. So, up to the mystery cleric, then.

 Hecuba comes up with a challenge herself and Fran complains that she really wanted to do her fun knocking over a glass of water challenge, but she acquiesces when Hecuba points out that the trio shouldn’t get to choose everything, and anyway Hecuba’s challenge is close enough. (She had actually wanted to see which could start a fire first, but Friendly didn’t seem too happy about that.)

Instead, the dwarf pours a cup of water, complementary from Friendly, into a bowl placed between her and Fran, and puts the cork of one of Friendly’s wine bottles, also complementary, in the center. As if telling an old inside joke, she chuckles, “If the heavens are like me, the water will prove it, I guess. We both entreat our deities to blow the cork to the opposite side. Loser’s the side the cork is on after six seconds.” Fran seems to think that’s reasonable enough, so Hambone counts down and they both start to pray—

Except the thing is… Hecuba just _doesn’t_. Fran is doing some loud, enthusiastic and heartfelt prayer, and Hecuba just stands there, watching everyone’s reactions, as Lup and Julia give rapid and emphatic _what the fuck_ gestures at her, smiling back casually. Lup gestures at her umbrella and shoots a spark from it— _like, you want me to magic this or what?—_ but she just shakes her head in the negative. Julia looks down at the bowl when the six seconds are up, and Fran’s prayers have generated just enough holy ripples to float the cork slightly to the other side. There’s an immediate storm of swearing on Team Girls, because _why_?

 “We do not bring proof from a water channel,” the absolute traitor says both sagely and vaguely. She pokes the cork and it floats gently to the gnome’s side of the dish. “The thing is, the Revered Mother is kind of in all things, and She doesn’t really _do_ miracles much if folks don’t do their best to make stuff happen on their own.”

“Then how do you _cleric_ ,” Julia and Lup both want to ask, but Fran beats them to the punch.

“Herbalism, partly, but She knows I can only do so much when it comes to healing. But stuff like this? Why trouble Her with petty disputes?” She pats the book holster on her belt as she stands on the chair, reaches over the table, and grabs the paper that started it all. “And anyway, I feel like I learned a lot from all this. You girls are a hoot and a half! Sorry, Fran, but I might die if I have to deal with your guys for more than an hour.”

A grin breaks out on her face when she scans the listing and points at a line near the bottom—“Posted by Gundren Rockseeker”—and jabs her thumb in the direction of the other dwarf left at the bar, who waves.

“You gals want the last job you’ll ever need? ‘Cause, uh, you’re hired.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To convince myself to write this again despite the fact I've forgotten how to write, I made a 126 song playlist for this and Send The Light, the THG AU Stolen Century. 
> 
> Also, when I first started writing this fic, there was only one episode of TSC out... and now it's been a year since the finale... whoops?


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